


Did you really mean it?

by ZiamIsBrave



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Crying, Fluff, Love, M/M, Melancholy, Mutual Pining, Smoking, Texting, Twitter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-02
Updated: 2015-02-02
Packaged: 2018-03-10 05:07:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3277847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZiamIsBrave/pseuds/ZiamIsBrave
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Did you really mean it?"<br/>"I think you sent that to the wrong person"<br/>"No, it was for you. Did you really mean it?"</p><p>Being mutually in love but still unable to be together is worse than dealing with unrequited feelings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Did you really mean it?

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Did you really mean it?](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/95813) by ZiamZiam. 



When he hears the sound of the cellphone buzzing on the bedside table, Louis furrows his eyebrows in confusion. One single buzz, so it's a text. Any other notification is disabled, and a call, even if interrupted after the first ring, would have made the phone vibrate longer.

He takes a drag from the cigarette he holds between his fingers, continuing to stare at the object lying next to the bed, unused, as he sits by the open window to prevent the room to get filled with smoke.

He usually wouldn't be that perplexed by a text notification. Management often contacts them like that, and it's not rare for them to decide not to make their conversations public on Twitter. Even though generally they much prefer knocking on each other's door if it's only about having a chat. However, it's 2 AM, and Louis is pretty sure he is the only one still awake on their floor. At least, he was until now.

Although the cigarette isn't finished yet, he decides to push it on the ashtray, stands up with a sigh and lets himself fall on the mattress. He grabs the cellphone, unlocking it to find out who texted him.

Harry Styles.

_-Did you really mean it?-_

Louis frowns, staring at the display. But no matter how hard he thinks, he can't make a sense out of that sentence.

Could he have sent it to the wrong person? Yes, that must be it. After all, he can clearly see even in this exact moment the two-years-long void between the text he just got and the previous ones. Messages that, in any case, he surely doesn't feel like reading again. And, he can't even be referring to something they talked about recently. It's been days since he has talked to Harry. Weeks. Months...

He shakes his head, trying to distract himself. He has no intention of thinking about Harry, or having to push away for the umpteenth time the unpleasant feelings that causes him. A mistake, yes. Harry got the wrong person. He'd better tell him.

_-I think you sent that to the wrong person-_

He doesn't even have the time to put the cellphone back down on the bedside table. The vibration in his hand immediately warns him of a reply.

_-No, it was for you. Did you really mean it?-_

Louis takes a deep breath, closing his eyes. He breathes out slowly. Apparently it wasn't a mistake.

Such a prompt reply can only mean one thing: Harry never even put the phone down, waiting for his text. It's not hard for Louis to picture it. The idea almost makes him smile, but he is able to stop himself before it's too late.

_-What are you talking about?-_

This time Harry seems to be taking his time. Louis manages to put the phone down and lie on his back, hands behind his head, thinking about how pathetic it is that they've exchanged more words in those few texts than they have during the last two years. Pathetic, sad and ridiculous. Kind of like he feels at the moment.

The phone is once again in his hands a few moments later, after having buzzed again on the wooden surface. This time the message contains nothing more than a link, a shortened one to save characters or hide the name of the website to the one who is going to open it. That's why it took Harry so long, probably: he had to do this thing, for some unknown reason.

With a sigh, he taps on the link with his index finger. The screen lights up with the Twitter app colours. The tweet that appears a moment later is a series of words that he knows all too well.

 

**'Always in my heart @Harry_Styles . Yours sincerely, Louis'**

 

His fingers take a firmer grip around his cellphone. His first instinct is throwing it away, not answering, ignoring the question altogether, finishing his packet of cigarettes, and going to bed.

Yet, it's the answer to Harry's question itself that prevents him from doing that. He can only run his free hand through his hair and on his face, while his fingers type three simple letters. A small word, everything that should make him feel like the luckiest and happiest lad in the world, and which instead saddens him on a daily basis.

_-Yes-_

Lying, after all, would be no use. It wouldn't make him feel better, nor Harry. Perhaps it would on the long run, but it's not a risk Louis is willing to take. Not when he knows that it would make him feel even more like shit, worse than he has during these past few years.

Years spent not talking to the boy he still sees as the most important person in his life. Years spent showing around his best fake smiles as he holds hands with a girl who is nothing more than a beard. Years that he should have instead spent absent-mindedly, feeling free to show the world how much he loved Harry Styles.

Unfortunately, complaining about this, thinking about it, grieving, and punching the wall or the mattress, can't change the past.

Louis hasn't even bothered turning the phone's display off, so the appearance of the other's reply isn't accompanied by the vibration.

_-Even now?-_

Before Louis can even think of an answer, a second message shows up.

_-Even in ten years? Twenty?-_

Although it's something that makes his chest ache in a way that he once wouldn't have believed possible, the answer to these questions is easy and plain to Louis as well.

_-Always. For my entire life-_

As he taps on the screen with his thumb, sending the message, a transparent drop hits his nail. A second one falls a moment later next to the first, hitting the display. Louis blinks, his sight blurry: only then he realizes his cheeks are wet with tears.

He is usually able to hold himself back, not showing anyone, not even himself, how ruined he has been from this situation, how much pain he feels inside. He often lets anger and frustration show up and yes, maybe some tears do escape his eyes sometimes, but it has been a long time since he has cried like this.

He lets go of his cellphone, rolling on his side. He brings the knees to his chest, pressing a hand against his face. The other hand's fingers take a grip on his own shirt, right where his heart is supposed to be because, fuck, it's impossible for it to be just something that pumps blood in your body. It has to be something physical, a direct link to what he is feeling – it hurts so bad that maybe the only real way to get some relief would be shutting it down completely.

The phone that lies next to him has already buzzed again, but Louis doesn't feel like reading Harry's new message. He is no longer used to sobbing like that, not after having held himself back for so long.

He still remembers the conditions he was in after what had happened that evening, January 2013.

“Louis, Harry, there's something we need to discuss” had been the words starting it all. Or, to be more precise, ended it.

They had been carried to an office where, very bluntly, they had been told that their relationship couldn't go on. Sure, they had tried to make it sound like something necessary, an unavoidable step for the good of the band. Two members being involved in a romantic relationship would have led to nothing but trouble. They had been ridiculous attempts, thinking back about it: they both had instantly realized what the real problem was. It was a homosexual relationship.

Until that moment they had done anything to keep the thing hidden; they had even pushed some fake relationships with girls on them. Louis had deluded himself thinking that it might be enough, but apparently he had been wrong. Not even forcing them to break up seemed to be enough for them.

“You need to stop interacting so much in public. Rumours are going to slowly disappear”.

At first, Louis had smiled, silently looking for Harry's eyes. It had sounded like a joke; they couldn't actually force him to pretend, they wouldn't be able to stop their relationship. It had sounded like such a stupid request. A request made with all too serious looks on their faces. A request that, in the end he had realized, was going to become an order.

Thinking back about that night touches something inside Louis, making him cough stifled sobs out of his throat, making him shiver. The phone keeps buzzing every now and then, insistently.

“Well, it's going to be hard ignoring each other all the time in public, but it's not like they can force us t-”

Louis had withdrawn the hand that Harry had playfully tried to grab as they walked through the hallway. They had both stopped, Louis with his head down, Harry with a frown on his face. He had looked at him, questioning, confused, withdrawing his hand as well.

“Lou, what is it...?” Harry had asked that with a small voice, moving a few uncertain steps towards him. His hand had looked for him another time, but Louis had pulled it back once again.

“Don't hold my hand. We're not a couple” he had answered.

What an idiot.

He had always acted like the mature one of the two, the confident one; he should have been cheering Harry up, smiling at him as they decided to fight, to play their parts in public, if they had to, making sure nothing really changed between them. He had always pretended he was the strong one, but fear had prevailed.

Thrilled by his new life, that dream he had found himself in along with the other four lads, he had given up to terror. A single word said by those people, a picture taken at the wrong time, a too ambiguous attitude, any little mistake could have made it all end.

So, he had made the wrong choice. A choice he had regretted immediately after. He had slammed the hotel room's door behind himself and had slid down, leaning against it. He had cried.

Now, as he tries to stop the tears, he feels like he has never stopped sobbing ever since that day. And maybe, inside him, it's true.

The sound of yet another vibration brings him back to reality. Louis rubs his hands on his face to dry his eyes at least a little – he grabs the phone, unlocks the screen with his fingertip. The display lights up, showing all the new messages. They're all from Harry.

He needs to try and dry his eyes again, brushing his wrist on one and then on the other, in order to make his sight clear enough for him to read the many letters that cover the display.

_-You're always in my heart too. You always were and always will be-_

_-It doesn't matter how much time we spend without talking to each other-_

_-Or without even looking at each other-_

_-It doesn't matter how many people we will go with-_

_-Dates, kisses, sex, love-_

_-Even if I fall in love with another guy or girl, or if you do-_

_-In my heart there will always be that space saved for you-_

_-Only you and no one else-_

_-Always in my heart-_

_-And I hope I have a space in yours as well-_

_-Because the time will come, I don't know when-_

_-Maybe tomorrow, in a year, ten, twenty or thirty-_

_-It doesn't matter how many, it's irrelevant-_

_-The time when we can finally be together-_

_-And forget about all this-_

_-Sorry for all these messages-_

_-They're just a little part of what I'd like to tell you every day-_

_-And I know that all this is painfully sweet, but I love you-_

_-And two years without talking to you are a fucking long time-_

_-Always yours, Harry-_

When he finishes reading, his hands are trembling. He isn't able to type a long thought-out answer, his sight is too blurry because of the tears. His fingers move instinctively, looking for the letters on the virtual keyboard based on his memories. Just a few letters that it's been too long since he has typed one after the other, actually meaning them.

“ _I love you”_

He is still trying to calm himself down and stop crying when he receives a reply.

_-Oh... Lou, those are the most beautiful words anyone has ever said to me... Thank you... :P-_

Louis is taken aback by the tone of that text. As he tries to figure out the reason for it, his gaze falls on the text he has just sent.

_-I kibr tiu-_

He can't stop himself from laughing, shaking his head and rolling his eyes for a moment.

_-Idiot-_


End file.
